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  His breath feathered across her cheek, and then the kiss she craved began as his lips settled onto hers. The sensation was exquisite. His mouth was warm and firm as it moved over hers, and she slipped her arms up around his neck, offering herself to him in a wordless motion that he clearly recognized.

  She’d missed this, the warm physical pleasures two people could share. But as Marty’s tongue flicked along the line of her lips, outlining the shape of her mouth, she had to be honest with herself. She didn’t ever remember feeling quite so shaky, trembly, totally turned on before.

  Then his mouth grew bolder, and she stopped thinking as she parted her lips, letting him in. He gathered her closer so that she could feel the arousal confined by his jeans and her breasts were crushed against his chest. She twisted slightly, whimpering a little into his mouth in an unconscious plea for more, and he answered her, bending her backward over his arm. His mouth devoured hers, burning a hot path down her throat as he nuzzled beneath her open jacket, over her throat. He nipped at her collarbone, and she shivered in his arms. Then his mouth slid lower, grazing the upper swell of her breast. He raised a hand and brushed aside the fabric of the little black dress and he was suddenly, shockingly, suckling her breast right through the lacy fabric of her bra.

  She arched against him, gasping at the sharp, exciting sensation. Between her legs, an aching throb demanded satisfaction, and she squirmed against him until she was half-astride his thigh.

  And then he lifted his head. He went completely still and so did she. He shifted her so that she was upright, facing him, and they both made small sounds of protest as she slid over the rigid flesh at his loins.

  She realized her fingers were gripping his hair so hard it must hurt. His chest was heaving, and every muscle in his big body was like steel. Deliberately she relaxed her fists and slid her hands down to rest against his chest. As sanity returned, embarrassment set in. What was Marty thinking of her?

  “We’re standing in a parking lot,” he said through gritted teeth. He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. “The things I want to do to you, with you, aren’t going to happen in a parking lot or any other public place. And they aren’t going to happen until we know each other better.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, wondering if the heat in her cheeks was producing a glow in the evening light. His restraint touched her. “I don’t—this isn’t the kind of thing—” She stumbled over the words, because they weren’t true. She did, and she had, and very possibly she would have, with him.

  “I know.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “I know. It’s not my style, either.” Then he placed a gentle finger beneath her chin and tipped her face up, inspecting her as she stared back at him, wide-eyed. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

  “Um, I think so.”

  “Write down your phone number for me.”

  “Oh. All right.” He released her so she could dig through her purse, and she quickly did as he requested. “Here,” she said, handing him the slip of paper. It was still hard to breathe evenly, and she saw the flash of his grin light up his face.

  “Glad I’m not the only one who’s having trouble recovering,” he teased, and she had to smile back. Then he drew her into his arms again, holding her loosely with his hands linked at her back. “I’ll call you this week.”

  “I won’t be home until late each evening,” she said. “Better wait until after nine.” It wasn’t true, but she wanted to be able to savor his call, and it would be hard to keep her attention undivided if Bobby was awake.

  “All right. Then we can talk more about Friday.”

  “Marty…” She couldn’t keep the troubled note from her voice. “Friday is awfully soon. This is crazy!”

  He nodded. “If we were teenagers with no experience, I’d agree. But we’re adults. I’ve been thinking of remarrying for quite a while, and I know what I want.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I want you.”

  And I want you, her heart answered. I love you. She barely stopped herself from uttering the words and she stood stock-still, too shocked to move. Could she really be in love with a man she’d met a few hours ago?

  Of course she couldn’t. Infatuation, that’s what it was. Nobody fell in love that fast.

  Did they?

  He unclasped his hands and turned her toward her car. When she pulled out her keys, he took them from her and unlocked the door, then helped her in with a chivalrous grace that would have charmed her if she hadn’t fallen so hard already. “Think about it and let me know.”

  He leaned in and took her lips in one final kiss, thrusting his tongue between her lips and demanding her response until she was straining forward as far as her seat belt would allow, trying to get closer to him. But long before she was satisfied, he drew his head away. His rough fingers caressed her cheek, and then he stood back, shutting her door and waiting until her engine started before he strode across the lot to his pickup truck.

  She watched him climb in, then realized he was waiting for her to move before leaving the lot, and she was touched by his thoughtfulness.

  A squirming little sensation of guilt wormed its way into her euphoria, though, as she took a left out of the exit and drove toward her apartment. She hadn’t told him about her baby.

  She would, she assured herself, evading the guilt. It was just that everything had been so new, so special. So perfect. She’d been prepared to graciously back out of the meeting, had had no intention of actually considering an arranged marriage, but once she’d met Marty…

  Dreamily, she smiled as she parked near her building. She’d tell him about Bobby soon. And she was willing to bet she was worrying for nothing. Marty must be a good father to his daughter, to be going to such lengths to improve her life. Surely he’d be equally good to her son.

  Two

  On Sunday morning Marty drew straws with his brother to see who got the unenviable task of replacing some rotting H-braces along one fence line in the larger winter pasture. It had warmed up after the five inches of snow they’d had last week and they were going to get as much done as they could before it snowed again.

  Even when he came up holding the shorter piece of hay, his good mood couldn’t be banished.

  Deck eyed him with suspicion as he handed Marty the post-hole digger. “You look like the village idiot. Something you want to tell me?”

  “Nope.” Marty lifted tools into the back of his pickup as Deck laid a coil of barbwire beside them.

  “Only thing I can think of that makes a man smile like that is a woman. Just what’d you do in Rapid City last night?”

  “None of your business.”

  Deck chuckled. “I knew it! You were with a woman.”

  He sure had been, but he didn’t intend to tell his brother about it yet. It was still too new, too…special to share.

  He hummed under his breath the whole way out to the pasture, eyeing the brilliant color of the wide-open sky and seeing no signs of storms.

  No question about it—last night had been the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. He knew in his bones that he could convince Juliette to marry him on Friday. He was as excited as a little kid, thinking about the coming weekend.

  No, he took that back. He was excited, all right, but no little kid ever felt the way he was feeling every time he thought about her slender frame, her soft lips and wide, blue eyes. All the signs pointed to a high-pressure system that wasn’t going to leave anytime soon.

  Well, he could wait. Just barely, but he could wait until Friday to make love to Juliette.

  His hands stilled on the post he was setting into the hole he’d dug as he allowed himself to consider what he was thinking. This was the first time since Lora’s death that he’d thought seriously of a woman. He’d thought about marriage on a purely objective level, and the steady sex that would come with it had been an abstract until now. Oh, he’d had sex a few times—a very few times—in the two years since he’d buried his wife, but he’d n
ever planned it and the women hadn’t been important, just interested in a good time.

  Making love. That was a troublesome phrase.

  He’d made love with Lora. Made love to her. Well and often, during the nine and a half years of their marriage. She’d been the first and only girl he’d ever had, and he’d loved her. Oh, how he’d loved her. He’d thought he couldn’t get any happier when they’d married, a week after graduating from high school, but he’d been wrong. When Cheyenne had been born, his happiness had doubled.

  His spirits dimmed as he thought of Lora’s pregnancies. He’d wanted a houseful of kids—his and Lora’s. But it wasn’t to be. She’d had three miscarriages before Cheyenne came along.

  And then…then she’d gotten pregnant again. She’d had a little spotting early on, and the doctor had cautioned her against any strenuous activity. They’d both been afraid of losing this baby the way they’d lost the earlier ones, so Marty had made her stay in Rapid with a friend of theirs for a few weeks. But things had gone so well that she’d soon come home again, and as she’d grown bigger, they forgot they’d been concerned.

  When the unthinkable happened, it couldn’t have been at a worse time. Lora had gone into labor two months early with no warning. He was out rounding up stock at a pasture much farther from the house than he usually worked. She’d come bouncing across the pasture in his old truck to find him, which couldn’t have been good, and they’d raced for the hospital.

  But they hadn’t made it. Her labor had been fast and frightening. Three-quarters of the way to Rapid City, Marty had to stop on the shoulder of I-90 and deliver the baby himself, a son so small and fragile it seemed a miracle he was even breathing. Lora had bled and bled…and he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing except wrap his too-tiny son in his jacket and race for the hospital.

  He’d never forget the final moments of that frantic trip, when her increasingly thready voice had finally quit answering his desperate pleas for her to stay with him, to keep talking to him….

  He couldn’t bear to dwell on the wrenching hours of the days that had followed, days in which he’d rarely left the hospital, so he returned to thoughts of Juliette.

  She was so unlike Lora, who’d been tall and sturdy, with generous breasts and wide hips that should have been able to birth a dozen babies easily. No, Juliette was nothing like Lora. She was small all over, slender and fragile and so fine-boned that he was afraid one incautious movement might snap her right in two.

  What would sex be like with her? It wouldn’t be making love. Couldn’t be, unless he loved her, which he couldn’t possibly. Could he? It troubled him to realize that with Juliette, he wouldn’t simply be having sex.

  No, when he had her soft body beneath his, had her responding to the touch of his hand, let himself drown in the pleasures he knew she offered, he wouldn’t be thinking of Lora.

  The whole train of thought was so disturbing he abandoned it.

  He’d thought about calling Juliette last night when he’d gotten home but he’d been afraid it might make him look too desperate. As he wrestled the post-hole digger into place for another attack on the gummy prairie sod, he knew good and well he wasn’t going to wait another night.

  He barely waited until the clock said one minute after nine that evening before he dialed the number she’d given him. It rang twice, and then a breathless female voice said, “Hello?”

  “Juliette.”

  “Marty?”

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  If he’d harbored any doubts about her, they vanished the second her soft voice uttered his name. He closed his eyes and said the first thing that came into his head. “I wish I were there with you right now.”

  There was a beat of silence, and he kicked himself for being too presumptuous. Just because he felt…connected to her didn’t mean she felt the same way.

  Then she said, “I wish you were, too.”

  The soft note of genuine regret in her tone pleased him. “I miss you.”

  “That’s crazy. You don’t know me well enough to miss me.” There was another small silence, and then she confessed, “I miss you, too.”

  He took a deep breath as his pulse increased; he had to clamp down hard on the urge to tell her he was going to drive into Rapid City right now. If he hadn’t had Cheyenne to think of, he just might have done it. “So how does one o’clock Friday sound?”

  “One o’clock?” Her voice was a squeak. “You’re serious? You really want to go and get married at one o’clock on Friday?”

  “Yep. If you’ll have me.” He knew he was pushing but suddenly he realized he had to hear a commitment from her, had to know she was going to be his.

  He wasn’t aware that he was unconsciously holding his breath until she said, “I guess there’s no reason to wait,” in a timid little tone.

  “Great.” He was pretty damned tickled that this whole thing seemed to be working out so well.

  They talked for over an hour, mostly general getting-to-know-you conversation. He shared everything he could think of about Cheyenne with her. He also began to talk to Cheyenne about Juliette the following day, encouraged when she seemed receptive to the idea of a new mother living in their house.

  On Monday he told his brother he was getting married on Friday, and while Deck was still reeling from the shock, he got a promise that Cheyenne could stay with Silver, his sister-in-law, during the day. And he called his bride-to-be again Monday night and Tuesday night.

  He told her about his family, his newly married brother and sister-in-law and the closest neighbors, also newly married.

  “It was funny,” he said. “I was the one who wanted to get married, and it seemed like everybody else except me was saying ‘I do.”’

  “They’re all going to think we’re crazy,” she said.

  “I don’t care what they think,” he said. “As long as I get to share a bed with you from dusk to dawn every night.”

  He had intended to tease her, but his words back-fired as a heavy rush of desire filled him. He’d been mildly turned on since he’d heard her voice; now he had a serious case of circuit overload threatening.

  There was silence on her end of the line. Oh, hell. Had he offended her? He had a big mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can you just pretend I never said that?”

  She laughed, a sweet, musical sound that tiptoed along his nerve endings and snuggled into his bones like an old friend. “Not a chance. I’m going to hold you to it. Dusk to dawn, buddy.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh, and it was as much relief that he hadn’t angered her as it was delight. “You little tease. Just wait till I get my hands on you.”

  “Okay.”

  He groaned.

  She said, “Maybe we’d better change the topic,” and he could hear the shy smile in her voice.

  “Not a bad plan,” he said. He cast around for something to talk about, but drew a blank.

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Tell me more about your ranch,” she requested.

  “My ranch. All right.” He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation. “I already told you my brother and I own it. We work it together. It’s a good-size operation, about thirty thousand acres.”

  “Do you and your brother live together?”

  “Not anymore. He and his wife, Silver, live in a cabin that my father built my mother when they were first married but they’re building their own place.”

  “I don’t know very much about ranches or cows,” she said.

  “That’s okay. I don’t know much about women’s underwear, either.”

  She laughed, and there was a short pause. “Have you lived all your life on your ranch?”

  “All my life,” he said. “I would never have made it through college. I can’t stand being shut up indoors.”

  There was another silence. “I enjoy learning,” she said. “I want to go back to school someday.”

  “What do you want to study?”


  “Literature,” she said. Then she laughed. “When I said I liked to read, I wasn’t kidding.”

  “Were you one of those kids who took a book out on the playground at school recess?” he teased.

  “Guilty. My friends used to get so furious with me because they’d ask me a question three times, and if I was reading, I never even heard them.”

  “Remind me not to talk to you when you have a book in your hand,” he said.

  She chuckled. The sound was soft and musical and it made his blood pressure rise, along with other, more noticeable parts of him. “What was your day like today?” she asked. “I’m trying to get a picture of what your life is like.”

  “It was pretty normal for this time of year,” he said. “I spent most of the day in the neighbors’ pasture hunting for three bulls that didn’t come in last time we fed. We finally found them. Two were more than happy to come along home, but the third one wasn’t so cooperative.”

  “So what did you do?” His life was as alien to her as if he came from another planet. She’d lived in or near a city all her life; Rapid City, which barely qualified compared to L.A. or San Diego, was by far the smallest metropolis in which she’d ever lived. And a real-live ranch…it certainly was going to be a new experience!

  He was laughing as he answered her. “Outsmarted him. He wasn’t about to do what we wanted, so we just kept deviling him until he was so tired he finally gave up. After that, he decided maybe going home wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  A noise from the second floor caught his attention, and he stilled. Sounded like Cheyenne was having a nightmare. “I hate to cut this short but I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow night, all right?”

  “All right.” Her voice was soft and sweet, and he hated breaking the connection.

  “See you Friday,” he promised.

  “All right. Goodbye, Marty.”